Systems of Communication
presented in conjunction with suek-artist
8:00pm 25th September 2010
The BAck doOR @ suek-artist
entry off back lane
658 Plenty Road, Preston
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
catch the 86 tram to stop 52
Bringing together works from across the globe this programme of experimental screen work explores the structural intricacies of systems of communication. (Programme curated by sue.k.)
Ever since neolithic man scratched markings in the walls of caves, the need to leave evidence of one's existence by way of communicating through a shared language has persisted. The works in this programme dig into a variety of ways in which the moving image explores methods of communication, from the literal scratching into plastered surface of a wall set to repeat in loop without time fracture, to the architectural drawings of interfacial systems of electronics. As a compilation and as individual works, all discuss, at a deep level, humanity in its social coexistence.
Direct Language Steven Ball, 28:30 mins, UK, 2005-2008
.airE, Maia Gusberti, Austria, 5 mins, 2001
Top Light and the Haunted Man, Sagi Groner, Israel/Netherlands, 11 mins, 2004
Das Kapital Version 07, Marcello Mercado, Argentina, 17 mins, 2003
Hey, cut it out, Derek Hart, UK, 6 mins, 2000
Rhythmus 99, Sam Landels, Australia, 5 mins, 1999
Steven Ball
Direct Language
28:30 mins, UK, 2005-2008
This video is constructed from a collection of short pieces made originally for the Direct Language videoblog (http://directlanguage.blogspot.com). Variously provisional, opportunistic, experimental sketches, observational studies, spatial explorations, situations and abstractions, they were made in serial and this version could be considered to be kind of abstracted journal, miscellany or compendium.
"Usually using unostentatious settings as stepping-stone footage for the videos - from urban settings, interiors, and forests - the subsequently manipulated and precisely choreographed patterns mirror the concern for formal and cognitive visual rigor. Often palindromic and/or surgically sliced into rhythmic, repetitive footage with careful concern for soundtrack implications, the short pieces reveal, at times, surprising short-circuiting attentive observations from the seemingly banal out-sets. A study in the manipulation of the inconspicuous." Thomas Wiesner, http://patalab02.blogspot.com
Maia GusbertiaulLouise Curham
.airE
5 mins, Austria, 2001
.airE is a study of everyday perception - of a travel by tramway trough a city, following electronic power lines - while capturing the electonic high voltage. On a different level it is an essay on abstraction. Is a concrete image abstract when removed from its context, or does this label apply only after digital alteration and reduction to basic graphic patterns?
Sagi Groner
Top Light and the Haunted Man
11 mins, Israel/Netherlands, 2004
In this video split screen Groner explores relationships between living in a state of hypnosis, Big Brother and the industries and science of perception. In this evocative collage, using archive footage of the pre and post 2GM along with satellite photos, images from security cameras and web cams, the story of The Haunted Man (Haunted Man) reveals itself. Claire and Don, the main characters, along with the viewer question about being awake and aware, while they are driven into and out of hypnosis in their search for Top Light (Light Up).
Marcello Mercado
Das Kapital Version 07
17 mins, Argentina, 2003
Command lines, programming lingo, coordinate instructions and video edit commands create a fatal illusion of mastery over the screen and its embedded database. The viewer/master in tune with the chaotic flow of capital and images is never confronted with the impact of this virtual flow on the real.
Derek Hart
Hey, cut it out
6 mins, UK, 2000
One of an ongoing body of work using found footage to explore stasis and repetition through the digital manipulation of the moving image. A short scene from the 1986 film Down by Law by Jim Jarmusch is prolonged to six minutes, at once suspending and perpetuating action, isolating it from its original narrative context and re-investing it with new meaning.
“Much has been written of the narcissistic identification that occurs watching film at the cinema; the hypnotic diegetic glue that you give yourself up to. Narrative identification is brought to the works by default but the way Hart utilises the loop stifles it; generally the editing is invisible and the point of view static. Gestures and movements that can fold in on themselves (be edited backwards and forwards seamlessly) are central elements around which the cyclical form of these works revolves.”
Philip Watkins, Temporal Oscillator, RealTime issue 94, Dec 2009 – Jan 2010.
Sam Landels
Rhythmus 99
5 mins, Australia, 1999
Rhythmus 99 is a digital animation made from still photographs of cityscapes snapped during visits to Hong Kong and Manhattan. The work takes its title from the Hans Richter film of 1921 from which this video has been inspired. Both works have a simple purpose, and that is to foreground movement as a structuring element of images. In the same way that Richter's film, with its constructivist white rectangles on black, was organised rhythmically on the mechanical movements of the cinema apparatus itself, this tape seeks a similar analogy between the organising principles of motion picture technology and the imagery it supports.